Meeting of the Hague Council on General Affairs and Policy in March 2017

From 14 to 16 March 2017, Members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law gathered in The Hague for the meeting of the Council on General Affairs and Policy. There were also observers from seven IGO / NGOs.

During the meeting, the Republic of Belarus signed the Hague Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, and the Republic of Cyprus deposited its instrument of ratification of the Hague Convention of 1 July 1985 on the Law Applicable to Trusts and on their Recognition.

Regarding the Judgments Project, the Council recognised the very good progress made and mandated the Secretary General to convene a third meeting of the Special Commission in November 2017. A Diplomatic Conference may be convened towards the end of 2018 or early 2019. However, further intersessional work on certain issues is necessary.

Regarding, the Parentage / Surrogacy project, the Council welcomed the work of the Experts’ Group and a third meeting of this Group will be convened in the coming year to notably discuss the question of how an instrument dealing with the recognition of foreign judicial decisions on legal parentage could operate; the recognition of legal parentage when recorded in a public document; and the feasibility of the possible application of future agreed general private international law rules on legal parentage to international surrogacy arrangements, and the possible need for additional rules and safeguards in these cases as well as in cases of assisted reproductive techniques.

Additionally, the Council discussed matters relating to governance of the Organisation, the pursuit of universality, and a variety of post-Convention activities.